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Posted by
Mr. Smith
on 2008-07-27

A lot of new entrepreneurs start pitching venture capitalists or angel groups and rejected over and over again, myself included. Entrepreneurs hear the same criticisms across dozens of meetings, which is discouraging. In some cases, you may even have second thoughts about your business, but, before you reconsider your model, consider what is going on.

First, investors use the same critical reasoning for different businesses in related industries as a way of saying "no" politely. For example, with online advertising businesses, your site is not sticky enough. With subscription business, conversion will be too low.

Second, investors are not operational or modeling experts, so their opinion on your business is worth as much as you pay for it: $0. They are experts at convincing entrepreneurs to give them a large portion of a company and the control for the least amount of money.

Third, investors say "no" many times per day, so they are very good at doing it without revealing the real reasoning. Reasoning rarely has anything to do with a model, but it usually has to do with (a) partner personality matches, (b) firm investment focus, (c) other investments by the firm, (d) sector heat, and (e) control.

In general, a new entrepreneur pitching a business should expect to hear "no" between 30 and 60 times before receiving investment. Each "no" meeting can be an opportunity to get closer to a "yes" by learning which aspects of your pitch generate the confusion, resistance, and questions. With each additional meeting, your pitch should get shorter and better. Don't give up. Be Strong in the face of "Trained Skeptics."